Your daily dose of news and views from in and around Dallas City Hall:

• Wild weather in the Dallas area Wednesday night and into this morning. Check out our live blogging of the worst of it -- and a couple of photos (

and

) that I shot from my balcony south of downtown. More importantly, some insight on how Dallas officials deal with severe weather while in the moment.

• Beware: City Hall is closing several downtown streets today in preparation for the 6th annual CityArts Celebration. Affected streets include Pearl, Harwood, Flora and Crockett. Click here for a full list.

• Mayor Tom Leppert may have a former television star in Chris Heinbaugh as his chief of staff. But Austin Mayor-elect Lee Leffingwell just hired Janet Jackson as his executive secretary, reports the Austin American-Statesman.

• Our own Tanya Eiserer explains why the Dallas City Council on Wednesday approved spending more than $106,000 to fix a police helicopter engine.